when love picks its shade
by whowhatsitwhich
Summary: And was there anything more precious than the bond that had grown, flourished, endured between them. Fragile and yielding. Only one thread thick during those moments when time seemed to slow and stop. Her gone, then him, then her. It was always something. Until it wasn't. Until they were here. Until her hand slipped gently into his and led him into her room, sliding the door close


Steam on the window, salt in a kiss

Two hearts have never pounded like this ~The Red Strokes, Garth Brooks

After all this time, turns out all they needed was time. Time for him to realize that to let himself love didn't automatically mean that pain would follow after. Time for her to realize that she couldn't carry the weight of the world around alone. Just time. Seconds and minutes and hours. Tossed carelessly away before but now seen as something precious.

And was there anything more precious than the bond that had grown, flourished, endured between them. Fragile and yielding. Only one thread thick during those moments when time seemed to slow and stop. Her gone, then him, then her. It was always something. Until it wasn't. Until they were here. Until her hand slipped gently into his and led him into her room, sliding the door closed behind them.

Daryl was hesitant, uncertainly chewing on his thumb as he studied her in the low light of the lamp burning by the bed. She was wary, wondering if she'd misread him. Did he want this? Want her? Was there somebody else? Had their time already come and gone by unnoticed?

His hand lifted to her cheek, feathering along her jaw line until his thumb rested over the pulse point just below her ear. It fluttered there like a wild thing, giving away ever shift of her thoughts though her face betrayed nothing. Blue on blue. They stared at each other unblinking as the silence filled up around them with everything unsaid and undone.

Can we? Should we? Do you? Can I?

She moved toward him, rising on tiptoe to brush his lips with hers. Paused and let her mouth linger. Felt the warm tide of his breath on her face. Curled one hand into the hair at his nape while the other rested on his shoulder to steady her. A weak little hitch of a laugh escaped her when his eyes were the first to close. They leaned into each other like that was all that kept them standing. Foreheads touched. Sweet little butterfly come and go kisses were exchanged.

Clothes fell by the way. Boots kicked aside. Hands wandered to places unexplored until now. Until here. She slipped out of her bra, letting her arm fall to her side. Let him see her as she was not how she wished she was. If she was gonna let him love her, it had to be real. No walls. No lies. No misdirection.

He stood back and looked his fill, gave himself permission to stare to his heart's content. Her hair was a little longer. Her wide blue eyes had shadows of an old and a new pain, pain that wasn't there before the prison fell. It was hers to tell if she wanted; his to hear when she was ready. Her skin was pale as cream where the sun had never touched, her arms and face palest gold. He let his hands follow where his eyes led, over pink tipped breasts and over a taut belly lightly marked where she'd carried her girl. He traced the curve of her waist to the flare of her hip and down…over slender thighs and bruised knees along the round of her calf and the arch of her foot. "You're beautiful," he breathed as he pressed a line of kisses on her stomach, mapping out those jagged little lines that had their own story.

Salty tracks slid silently down her face as she helped him to his feet. She stepped around behind him, whispering nonsense words as she took off his shirt and let it fall by the way. He had his own marks, his own sad tale that he'd kept locked away like a treasure. A slow poison to be sure but she'd been the first to see it and know it. The first to try to purge it from him. You're every bit as good as them. Every bit. Like she could read his mind, she stated in a quiet and fervent tone. "It's still true, you know. You are." Her fingers drifted over his shoulders, down his arms, along the plains of his back until they curled in the waist of his pants. She pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades, nuzzled her face into him, and breathed deep. He felt her start to loosen his belt and nudged her aside so that he could tend to it himself. Then he stood there before her, bare as the day he was born just as she was. Open. Unfettered.

Old fears and doubts reared up but the heat of their kiss burned it away. She was his and he was hers. Tears beaded in the corner of her eyes and fell as he moved above her, inside her, filling up all those empty spaces, silencing the voices in the back of her mind. He brushed them away with the pad of his thumb, kissed her soft and gentle and quiet, felt like cursing when his own tears fell and she wiped them away.

"Carol," her name was the slightest of whispers, falling free as he let go, burying his face in her neck.

"I love you," she muttered back in the same low tone. It was sacred, these words, said before but never meant in this way. This was what it was, theirs and theirs alone.


End file.
